With a New Year comes new resolutions and renewed energy to take on challenges. Whether it’s cutting down on sweets, hitting the gym more, getting organized or traveling the world, everyone has something to work toward. But while personal goals are often the de facto New Year’s resolutions, who says an organization – specifically an IT department – can’t make resolutions of its own? Start the year off with your best foot forward by implementing these resolutions to strengthen and maintain a smoothly running IT department in 2016.

Shed Those Extra IT Pounds – Excess vendor and product data make it difficult for businesses to manage and understand their IT inventory. Slimming down your IT assets can help your organization reduce costs, improve vendor contract management, decrease risks of vendor audits and protect technology and business initiatives. With a strong IT asset management plan, your enterprise can eliminate the risks of regulatory noncompliance, security vulnerabilities and poor data governance.

Secure Your Future – When it comes to making sure your organization’s future is safe and secure, a good first step is securing software. Maybe your organization lacks adequate firewall protections, or maybe it’s running out-of-date software, opening it up to greater risk and unwanted vulnerabilities. Not only will a sound security setup save organizations the headache, but avoiding the cost of a breach will help save money in the long run. Who doesn’t like starting the year off with a secure, fiscally sound plan?

Become More Social – The increase in wearables and connected devices is part of the continued growth of the Internet of Things, not only in the consumer space, but also for enterprises. Implementation of IoT in the enterprise allows organizations to manage, secure and operate non-traditional IT assets, allowing them to communicate with the network. There’s no better way for IT architectures to stay in touch than allowing different pieces to communicate data back to the network.

Armed with a set of foolproof resolutions, there’s no doubt that 2016 will be one for the books. A well-oiled IT department can keep enterprises secure and fiscally sound by eliminating the risk of a data breach or costly IT audit while ensuring that day-to-day operations run smoothly. By adapting new practices into existing IT asset management strategies, organizations can become stronger and better equipped to handle another busy year and shed those unnecessary IT pounds.

As President of BDNA, Walker White creates a better way for enterprises to extract value from their existing IT data.